Griffin Powermate – The Art Of Being A Knob With A Twist

Sure, you can do things from your keyboard, but sometimes having a shiny metal knob is just cooler.

At least, that’s what the geniuses at Griffinthink, and they’ve developed the Griffin Powermate to back it up. Tiny and aluminum, this blue-LED bottomed knob can be easily connected to any computer via a 40 inch USB cable.

Only 1.3” tall and 2.1” inches in diameter, this little knob packs some decent weight, and is a far cry from the easily-breakable sea of plastic that we’re all used to. Simply plug in the USB port, and the Griffin knob gets to work as a volume up/volume down spinner and an on/off button.

But that’s not all! As you raise or lower the noise, the blue LED glow will brighten or dim accordingly. Press the button to mute your sound, and the light disappears.

And as if that weren’t cool enough, Griffin went ahead and made the damn thing programmable. This means that if you can map your keyboard to do something on your computer, you can map the Powermate to do it. Jog/scroll for movie-making, scrolling through reams of text or even acting as a remote power-on button are all within the small and shiny metal device’s capabilities.

The Powermate will also save your settings, which means that while it can only perform one scroll and on/off function at a time, you can effortlessly switch between functions on the fly.

Sure, Powermate looks cool and is undoubtedly user-friendly, but frankly that’s not the best part. It’s the fact that the Powermate brings a long-missed tactile sensation to computing, one with weight and substance that is more at home on a fancy stereo system than our common plastic playthings.

As the world of computing goes boutique, it’s great to see options like the Powermate that are relatively inexpensive ($50 USD) ways to class up your computer.

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